News of the Day From Across the Globe, Nov. 21

Updated 7:35 pm, Friday, November 20, 2015

The U.N. Security Council unanimously approved a French-sponsored resolution Friday calling on all nations to redouble and coordinate action to prevent further attacks by Islamic State terrorists and other extremist groups. The resolution says the Islamic State “constitutes a global and unprecedented threat to international peace and security” and expresses the council’s determination “to combat by all means this unprecedented threat.” The measure is the 14th terrorism-related resolution adopted by the U.N. body since 1999. France’s U.N. Ambassador called the resolution “historic” and said the government will “scale up its efforts so as to galvanize the international community as a whole to vanquish our shared enemy.”

At least 15 killed

in Baghdad blasts

Bomb attacks on a Shiite mosque and elsewhere in southern Baghdad killed at least 15 people Friday. The deadliest of the attacks targeted the mosque in the Nahiyet al-Rasheed neighborhood. A roadside bomb blast went off on the street outside the mosque just as worshipers were finishing Friday prayers, police said. Within minutes, a suicide bomber inside the mosque detonated an explosives vest. Ten people were killed and 28 were wounded, according to police.

President Trump addresses nation after mass shooting at Florida SchoolWhite House

Attack prevented in Stockholm

A man arrested in Arctic Sweden and suspected of preparing “terrorist” crimes was planning to attack unknown targets in the Swedish capital, Stockholm, a prosecutor said Friday. Prosecutor Hans Ihrman demanded that the man, Moder Mothama Magid, be jailed while his case is being investigated by Sweden’s Security Service. Ihrman didn’t specify what the exact target might have been. The case is not believed to be linked to the deadly Paris attacks.

Portugal approves same-sex adoption

Portugal’s Parliament has approved laws allowing same-sex couples to legally adopt children and permitting lesbians to obtain medically assisted fertilization. Left-of-center parties used their outright parliamentary majority to ensure the bills passed Friday. The Socialist Party, Communist Party and Left Bloc had promised those measures during their campaigns for last month’s general election. Parliament in 2013 approved a law allowing gay married couples to adopt their partners’ children but rejected legislation granting gay couples the same adoption rights as heterosexuals.

Worm boosts female fertility, researchers find

The Tsimane women of Bolivia are often revered as among the most fertile in the world — on average having 10 children in their lifetimes. While collecting information from nearly 1,000 women in this community over nine years, UC Santa Barbara researchers discovered that it may have to do with parasitic worm infections. Women who were chronically infected with roundworm had as many as 12 children. In contrast, women who had successive hookworm infections saw births drop to seven. Writing in the journal Science this week, scientists theorized that the effects “may relate to the balance of immune responses that the different worms induce.”